A W3C Note is a dated, public record of an idea, comment, or document.
Notes are published at the discretion of the Director. Authorship of a Note may
vary greatly (e.g., by the Team, by a W3C Working Group, by a W3C Member,
etc.). Some examples of when W3C publishes a Note include:

Each technical report must include a section about the status of the
document. The status section should explain why W3C has published the technical
report, whether or not it is part of the Recommendation track, who developed
it, where to send comments about it, whether implementation experience is being
sought, any significant changes from the previous version, and any other
relevant metadata.

The status section of a Working Draft must set expectations about the
stability of the work (e.g., that it may be superseded, obsoleted, or dropped
at any time, that it should not be cited as other than a work in progress,
etc.) and must indicate the how much consensus within W3C there is about the
Working Draft (e.g., no consensus, consensus among the Working Group
participants, etc.).

The status section of a Note must
indicate the level of endorsement within or by W3C for the material in the
Note, and set expectations about future commitments from W3C to pursue the
topics covered by the Note or to respond to comments about the Note.

The W3C "Recommendation track" is the process that W3C follows to build
consensus around a Web technology, both within W3C and in the Web community as
a whole. W3C turns a technical report into a Recommendation by following this
process. The labels that describe increasing levels of maturity and consensus
along the Recommendation track are:

A technical report on the Recommendation track begins as a Working Draft. A
Working Draft is a chartered work item of a Working Group and generally
represents work in progress and a commitment by W3C to pursue work in a
particular area. The label "Working Draft" does not imply that there is
consensus within W3C about the technical report.

A Last Call Working Draft is a special instance of a Working Draft that is
considered by the Working Group to fulfill the relevant requirements of its
charter and any accompanying requirements documents. A Last Call Working Draft
is a public technical report for which the Working Group seeks technical review
from other W3C groups, W3C Members, and the public.

A Candidate Recommendation is believed to meet the relevant requirements of
the Working Group's charter and any accompanying requirements documents, and
has been published in order to gather implementation experience and feedback.
Advancement of a technical report to Candidate Recommendation is an explicit
call for implementation experience to those outside of the related Working
Groups or the W3C itself.

A Proposed Recommendation is believed to meet the relevant requirements of
the Working Group's charter and any accompanying requirements documents, to
represent sufficient implementation experience, and to adequately address
dependencies from the W3C technical community and comments from previous
reviewers. A Proposed Recommendation is a technical report that the Director
has sent to the Advisory Committee for review.

A W3C Recommendation is a technical report that is the end result of
extensive consensus-building inside and
outside of W3C about a particular technology or policy. W3C considers that the
ideas or technology specified by a Recommendation are appropriate for
widespread deployment and promote W3C's mission
[PUB15]

Possible transitions of the
Recommendation track

Generally, Working Groups create Working Drafts with the intent of advancing
them along the Recommendation track. However, publication of a technical report
at one maturity level does not guarantee that it will advance to the next. Some
technical reports may be dropped as active work or may be subsumed by other
technical reports. If, at any maturity level of the Recommendation track, work
on a technical report ceases (e.g., because a Working Group or Activity closes,
or because the work is subsumed by another technical report), the technical
report should be published as a W3C Note and the
status section should include the rationale.

Every technical report on the Recommendation track is
edited by one or more editors appointed by a Working Group Chair. It is the
responsibility of these editors to ensure that the decisions of the group are
correctly reflected in subsequent drafts of the technical report. Editors are
not required to be part of the Team.

Working Groups must archive each decision to request advancement of a
technical report to the next maturity level of the Recommendation track.

Any time a technical report advances to a higher maturity level, the
announcement of the transition must indicate any formal objections.

If, at any maturity level prior to Recommendation, review comments or
implementation experience result in substantive changes to a technical report,
the technical report should be returned to Working Draft for further work.

Entrance criteria. The Director must approve publication of
a first public Working Draft (or version for review beyond the Membership).

Publication of a Working Draft is not an assertion of
consensus, of endorsement, or of technical and editorial quality. Consensus is
not a prerequisite for approval to publish; the Working Group may request
publication of a Working Draft even if it is unstable and does not meet all
Working Group requirements.

Ongoing work. Once a Working Draft has been published, the
Working Group should continue to develop it by encouraging review and feedback
within and outside of W3C. To accommodate the schedules other Working Groups,
the Working Group should negotiate review by those Working Groups, possibly
prior to a formal review period such as Last Call.

Possible next maturity level. The Working Group may advance
a Working Draft to Last Call Working Draft.

identify known dependencies and solicit review from all dependent Working
Groups;

solicit public review. Consequently, a Last Call Working Draft must be a
public document.

Duration of the review. Generally, a Last Call review
period is three weeks long, but it may be
longer if the technical report is complex or has significant external
dependencies. The Working Group should negotiate the Last Call schedule with
known dependent groups.

Ongoing work. During a Last Call review period, the Working
Group should solicit and respond to comments from the Team, the Members, other
W3C groups, and the public. Advisory Committee representatives are strongly
encouraged to review Last Call Working Drafts so that substantive issues are
raised and addressed prior to Candidate Recommendation and well before Proposed
Recommendation.

To ensure the proper integration of a technical report in the international
community, from this point on in the Recommendation process it must include a
statement about how the technology relates to existing international standards
and to related work outside of W3C.

Possible next maturity levels. After a Last Call review,
the Working Group may request that the Director advance the technical report to
Candidate Recommendation or Proposed Recommendation. If the Director does not
advance the technical report to Candidate Recommendation or Proposed
Recommendation, the Director must return it to Working Draft by announcement to
all W3C groups.

Entrance criteria. Before advancing a technical report to
Candidate Recommendation, the Director must be satisfied that:

the Working Group has fulfilled the relevant requirements of the Working
Group charter and those of any accompanying requirements documents. The
Director must be satisfied with the rationale for any relevant requirements
that have not been fulfilled;

the Working Group has formally
addressed all issues raised during the Last Call review period (possibly
modifying the technical report);

The Working Group is not required to show that a technical report has two
independent and interoperable implementations as part of a request to advance
to Candidate Recommendation. However, the Working Group is encouraged to
include a report of present and expected implementation as part of the
request.

The request to the Director to advance a technical report to Candidate
Recommendation should indicate whether the Working Group expects to satisfy any
Proposed Recommendation entrance criteria beyond the default requirements
(described below).

Duration of the implementation period. The Director's call
for implementation experience must indicate a minimal duration for the
Candidate Recommendation period (designed to allow time for review comments).
The announcement should also include the Working Group's estimate of the time
expected to gather sufficient implementation data.

Ongoing work. The Working Group may update the technical
report during the Candidate Recommendation period if those updates clarify
existing meaning or consensus.

Possible next maturity levels. After a Candidate
Recommendation implementation period, the Working Group may request that the
Director advance the technical report to Proposed Recommendation. If the
Director does not advance the technical report to Proposed Recommendation, the
Director must return the technical report to Working
Draft by announcement to the Advisory Committee.

Entrance criteria. Before advancing a technical report to
Proposed Recommendation, the Director must be satisfied that:

the Working Group has fulfilled the relevant requirements of the Working
Group charter and those of any accompanying requirements documents. The
Director must be satisfied with the rationale for any relevant requirements
that have not been fulfilled;

the Working Group has formally
addressed issues raised during the previous review or implementation period
(possibly modifying the technical report);

each feature of the technical report has been implemented. Preferably, the
Working Group should be able to demonstrate two interoperable implementations
of each feature. If the Director believes that immediate Advisory Committee
review is critical to the success of a technical report, the Director may
advance the technical report to Proposed Recommendation even without adequate
implementation experience. In this case, the technical report status section
should indicate why the Director advanced the technical report directly to
Proposed Recommendation;

the Working Group has satisfied any other announced entrance criteria
(e.g., any announced in the request to advance to Candidate
Recommendation).

Duration of the review. The Proposed Recommendation review
period must be at least four weeks.

Ongoing work. During the Proposed Recommendation review
period, the Working Group should request endorsement and support from the
Membership (e.g., testimonials for a press release).

The Director should ask the Working Group to address, in a timely manner,
significant issues raised by the Advisory Committee during a Proposed
Recommendation review. If asked by the Director, the Working Group must formally address these issues. Formal
replies may be sent to reviewers after the end of the review (e.g., for reviews
sent at the end of the review period). Note: The Team contact
must make every effort to ensure appropriate confidentiality when conveying
issues raised by Advisory Committee representatives to the Working Group.

During a Proposed Recommendation review, the Working Group should also formally address informed and relevant
issues raised outside the Advisory Committee (e.g., by the public or another
W3C Working Group), and report them to the Director in a timely fashion.

Advisory Committee representatives should encourage a thorough review by
their organization of the technical report at Last Call or earlier, rather than
at the Proposed Recommendation stage. Advisory Committee representatives may
still raise issues in their review about the technical content of a Proposed
Recommendation.

Possible next maturity levels. The Director may advance the
technical report to Recommendation, possibly with minor changes from the
version reviewed by the Advisory Committee. If the Director does not advance
the technical report to Recommendation, the Director must return the technical
report to either Candidate Recommendation or Working Draft.

Whatever the decision, it must take the form of an announcement to the
Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee should not expect an announcement
sooner than two weeks after the Proposed
Recommendation review period. If, after three
weeks, the Director has not announced the outcome, the Director should
provide the Advisory Committee with an update.

Entrance criteria. The Director must be satisfied that
there is significant support for the technical report from the Advisory
Committee, the Team, W3C Working groups, and the public. The decision to
advance a document to Recommendation is a W3C decision.

The Director advances a technical report to Recommendation by sending an
announcement to the Advisory Committee. If there was any dissent in the Proposed Recommendation
reviews, Advisory Committee representatives may appeal the decision to advance the technical
report.

Ongoing work. W3C should make every effort to maintain its
Recommendations (e.g., by tracking errata, providing testbed applications,
helping to create test suites, etc.) and to encourage widespread
implementation. The Working Group and editors should track errata and document
clarifications.

W3C may publish a revised version of a Recommendation to make minor
clarifications, error corrections, or editorial repairs, without following the
Recommendation track. The status section of an
editorial revision must indicate its relationship to previous versions (e.g.,
that it supersedes previous versions). The Team must notify the Members when an
editorial revision of a Recommendation is published.

If more substantial revisions to a Recommendation are necessary, a Working
Group must follow the Recommendation process to produce the
revision. The status section of any
Recommendation must indicate its relationship to previous related
Recommendations (e.g., an indication that a Recommendation supersedes,
obsoletes, or subsumes another, etc.).

A W3C Recommendation may be submitted to another standards body for adoption
and formal approval by that body.

Possible next maturity levels. In this version of the
Process Document, there are no maturity level changes after Recommendation; a
technical report remains a Recommendation indefinitely.